


Graveyard Shift

by Electra_XT



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Consensual Somnophilia, M/M, Nightmares, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-07-31 21:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20122087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electra_XT/pseuds/Electra_XT
Summary: “What I meant to say is that I could sit by your bed, watch you sleep, and fuck you if you ever started having bad dreams.”





	Graveyard Shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).

“Hey, you know how I get horrible awful screaming nightmares?” Klaus said. 

He was sifting through the piles of stuff in his room. He and Ben had been working away at them for a couple weeks, and in that time, Ben's standards for what a normal person should have in their bedroom had slowly melted. Klaus was ostensibly looking for drugs to dispose of, and Ben was proud of him, but in reality the things they kept finding were more along the lines of several doll heads or a bag of pen cartridges with no pens or a pair of disturbingly expensive leather shoes that Klaus kept insisting he'd bought legally despite Ben's vocal doubts. The most surprising thing, though, was the way the task brought out Klaus's focus like little else Ben had ever seen before. It was kind of nice to see Klaus earnest about something for a change.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I... yeah, I know.”

_I’ve been watching you sleep since we were sixteen but not in a creepy way, I don’t have a choice, and sometimes it’s fine and mercifully boring but other times it’s agony to watch you clench your jaw and thrash as the ghosts pin you down in the place where I can’t follow, so yeah, Klaus, I know how you get nightmares._

Ben cleared his throat.

“Why do you ask?” he said.

“Oh, just a casual passing interest,” Klaus said. He picked up an old compact and opened it, making a face at himself in the ancient mirror. “Lately I’ve been feeling like they’re kinda getting worse.”

"I've noticed," Ben said.

The mental images in his mind were not ones that he wanted to go into.

“Oh ho,” Klaus said, sitting back on his heels and looking up at Ben. “You’ve noticed. Does that mean you watch me sleep?”

“Uh,” Ben said.

“Oh shit, wait, can you dreamwalk?” Klaus said. He made a little walking motion with two fingers. “Like get in my noggin when I’ve nodded off? Can you tell what I’m dreaming about? Because if so, I can’t decide if I’m sorrier about the graphic bloody murders you see or the freaky sex dreams about—”

“I don’t actually see _what_ you’re dreaming,” Ben interrupted, even though some perverse part of him wanted to pull that conversational hangnail a little more until it bled. “But I see how you… react.”

“How I react in my sleep?” Klaus said.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm,” Klaus said. He picked up his stuffed unicorn from the pile and opened it, showing Ben how it was empty. Ben gave him a thumbs-up. “How do you know when I’m having a nightmare?”

“You clench your fists,” Ben said. “You start shaking. And you cry.”

“I don’t cry in my sleep,” Klaus said.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “You do. And you make little moaning noises, too.”

“Are you sure you’re talking about the bad dreams, now?”

Ben was sure.

He chewed on his ghostly thumbnail, a habit he couldn’t break even in death. If watching Klaus twitch and shudder in the grips of a nightmare was painful, then watching Klaus thrash and moan in the grips of a _not_-nightmare was… itchy. It wasn’t as bad, of course, but Ben couldn’t rid himself of the image, the tent of Klaus’s hard cock in the sheets, his stretched-out, sculpted body on the bed. It made Ben want to stand back and take it all in and live up to his track record of being the ever-present silent voyeur, but it also made him want to lean forward, tear off the sheets, reach out with his fingers. He’d seen Klaus in any number of lewd scenarios, blithely offering his ass to any guy who’d give him a place to crash, but when he was asleep and alone, he seemed like he actually liked it. He was pure pleasure, alone in his bed.

“Ben, you absolute sicko, do you watch me when I’m having sex dreams?” Klaus said. “Look at you go, you adorable little ghostie perv. I bet you hover just at the right angle while I’m having sex so you can see my ass jiggling with every thrust some dude pounds into me. Well, I can’t say that I object.” Klaus picked up the compact again and made a kissy face at himself in the mirror.

Ben swallowed. “The nightmares,” he said. “You said they were getting worse.”

Klaus looked up at him. “I said that?”

“Yes,” Ben said patiently, although if he was being honest with himself his patience was really wearing thin these days. Well, it had been running thin for a couple years, and then Klaus had taken so many drugs and drunk enough that Ben had completely fucking abandoned him and then his patience had refilled in a well of absence, and then Klaus had pissed him off again— Ben’s patience was nearly as elusive as his corporeal form. He didn’t like to think about it anymore, not particularly.

“So my nightmares are getting worse and they’re really fucking with my sleep schedule,” Klaus said, going back to his piles. There was something forced in his voice that Ben wasn’t a fan of. “And, like, I’m really trying to get my life back together, you know? Like I asked Diego to make me an egg smoothie or whatever healthy protein potion he’s into these days— and that scores me two in one for brotherly bonding, because it gets me one, spending time with Diego, and two, taking care of myself. Pretty neat, right? But like… it runs out that when you can’t sleep, everything kind of sucks. Like I’m tired. And I drink coffee but it gives me such insane jitters, it really rattles me, you know? Really gets the blood flowing in all kinds of awful ways. And it makes me see in splotches.”

“I don’t think caffeine’s supposed to do that,” Ben said. 

“Weird,” Klaus said blithely. “Well, I’m special. Anyway. It’s bad.”

Klaus’s voice was light. Bad sign.

“And sleeping pills are off the table, I’d imagine,” Ben said.

Klaus gave him a look. “Yeah.”

“That sucks,” Ben said.

Klaus sat back on his heels. “Y’know, Ben, I really thought you’d have some better ideas to share than ‘that sucks.’”

“Well,” Ben says, “it does suck.”

“Yeah, I _know._ Which is why I’m telling you. So you can help me. Right, brother mine? Dead brother? Favorite brother?”

“You never asked the question, actually. You were just complaining at me.”

Klaus rubbed a hand across his face. Ben chewed on his lip. Klaus normally looked a little bedraggled, like a fancy bird caught in the rain and dragged under a car and maybe rolled in glitter and then stuffed into a giant bargain-basement thrift store coat, but today he looked worse than that, wan and a little limp. Not sweaty and glazed and dazed, not high, but not great either, and something in Ben’s chest dipped with guilt as he realized that Klaus wasn’t kidding about the lack of sleep.

There was an idea brewing in the back of his mind, but he wasn’t about to say it.

“You could take naps?” Ben suggested.

Klaus looked at him. “Really?”

“What do you mean, really?” Ben said.

“I mean that you usually have better ideas than this,” Klaus said, standing up and collecting himself. “It’s not like I tell this shit to just anyone, you know. I thought you’d… whatever.”

Ben bit his tongue. He should tell him. He should.

“Whatever, man, thank you for the shitty non-advice,” Klaus said. “I’m gonna go to the convenience store and exchange some money for some goods, so if you want to tag along, the Klaus train’s leaving now, if you know what I mean.”

“I am always on the Klaus train,” Ben said. “I literally could not get off the Klaus train if I tried.”

“Oh, right,” Klaus said, asshole smile blooming back onto his face. “Because you’re dead. You coming or not?”

The convenience store was mostly abandoned, and Klaus already looked crazy, so it really wasn’t a problem for him to talk to Ben.

“Why are berries so fucking expensive?” Klaus asked, picking up a plastic container of raspberries. “What is it about them that makes them, like, worth ten times the amount of Cheerios?”

“I can help you with the nightmares,” Ben blurted out.

Klaus looked at him.

“Or not,” Ben said, fading into the wall a little.

“Asshole,” Klaus said at the wall.

Ben half-smiled. “You want my help?”

“Genuinely I do,” Klaus said, giving him his signature puppy eyes. “Genuinely, Ben, I genuinely do.”

“If you say ‘genuinely’ three times, it stops sounding genuine.”

“Ben.”

Ben cracked his knuckles. “Can you hand me the raspberries?”

Klaus wordlessly picked up the raspberries and held them out to Ben’s translucent hand. 

Ben caught them.

“Oh, that’s so cool,” Klaus said. “Aww, Benny, that’s adorable. you’re a real boy now, huh? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“It fucking isn’t,” Ben said. He was getting annoyed, Klaus flying around him like a mosquito, although maybe Ben was the parasite and the mistake and the irrelevant one and he couldn’t think about that, and he had to just say it, he had to, he _had_ to.

“What I meant to say is that I could sit by your bed, watch you sleep, and fuck you if you ever started having bad dreams.”

There was a silence.

The only good thing about being dead was the ability to sink into the ether and fade into nothingness. Ben felt sick. He edged towards the wall, pulled by shame and the urge to hang his head and vanish— what the hell was he thinking, suggesting that? He was a pervert. An unhelpful brother. A weird and slightly lackluster ghost.

"Where are you going?" Klaus said.

"Sorry," Ben said. "I— it's a dumb idea, I shouldn't have suggested it."

"On the contrary," Klaus said, and Ben saw his smile beginning to form on his face again. "On the contrary, indeed. That's exactly the kind of problem solving I like to hear."

So now, a couple nights later, he was sitting by Klaus’s bed, watching him sleep, and waiting for the bad dreams to come.

The first night was disappointingly fine. Ben spent several hours doing nothing but watching Klaus, a perverse kind of meditation, jumping a little bit whenever Klaus moved or rolled over in his sleep, and he was almost (almost) glad he didn’t have a real body, for the sheer sake of the joint pain he’d have if he really spent the entire night hunched in one position. Klaus looked stripped bare when he was sleeping, his persona one more layer of glittery clothing that he always refused to let drop. But when he was naked, when he was underwater— when he was hiding from the entire world except Ben… Ben was teetering on the edge of something important, he was realizing, something uncomfortably or maybe exhilaratingly real. 

Klaus rolled over and the moment broke like a bubble. Ben cracked his knuckles. Bad habit. Klaus said he was getting it from Diego.

He had to stay vigilant.

It had been a rainy day, which was strike one. Klaus wilted in bad weather. And strike two, Klaus had therapy, which he genuinely hated for reasons Ben couldn’t quite fathom— in theory, Klaus wanted to ‘get better’ in some nebulous sense, and in theory he loved captive audiences, but there was something about the earnestness of sitting down on a bland sofa that made Klaus freeze up. Ben had watched, devastated, as Klaus sat down for countless therapy sessions, smiled politely at the therapist, and then lied. Not exactly nightmare fuel in and of itself, but as Ben watched Klaus’s chest heave under the covers, he couldn’t help but feel that the storm was gathering on the horizon.

“No,” Klaus mumbled.

Ben froze.

Klaus’s hand twitched. “No— stop—”

Ben hesitated. It was surreal to hear that and think go. But Klaus’s brow was creasing now, sleep no longer taking care of him well, and Ben took a deep breath, reaching out and sliding Klaus’s pajama pants down oh-so-gently. No underwear. Klaus’s ass was pale in front of him in the low light. Ben reached for the lube and poured some into his fingers, warming it up in his hands so the intrusion would be easy.

Klaus whimpered. Ben took a deep breath and pressed one finger inside him.

It was sort of miraculous. If Ben were alive, he was almost certain he’d wake up if someone curled their index finger into his ass, but Klaus only paused for a moment before relaxing, going almost worryingly pliant. Ben didn’t want to think about that for too long. He added another finger. Klaus’s legs were covered in fine goosebumps and Ben flexed his fingers inside him, scissoring them.

“Diego,” Klaus mumbled.

Ben furrowed his brow.

“Diego, it’s no use. He’s dead.”

Ben’s stomach dropped.

“The blood,” Klaus said, and Ben saw it in his mind again, the last hazy moments of his living mind tinged with red, the final seconds lying on the floor before he plunged into the afterlife. The blood indeed. He was trembling now, he noticed, and before he could stop himself he was clambering into Klaus’s bed, pressing his body along Klaus. Klaus had told him not to talk— _just let it happen to me, Ben, let it roll over me like a fucking wave—_ and Ben swallowed as Klaus’s face twisted up in anguish.

“He’s gone,” Klaus said into the sheets.

“I’m here,” Ben blurted out, fingers twisting inside Klaus’s ass, other hand skimming Klaus’s shoulder. “Klaus, it’s okay.”

“I’m,” Klaus said, and he thrashed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry— no, I can’t see him—”

“Don’t be sorry,” Ben said. His dick was still perversely hard, pulsing in his hand, and he sank it into Klaus before he could second-guess himself. He stuck his hand down and held Klaus’s cock in his hand, squeezing it, feeling it thicken in his hand. Klaus’s breath was ragged with anxiety.

“Can you feel me?” Ben said. He adjusted himself, burying himself deeper, as Klaus’s hand twitched against the covers, clutching a handful of the sheets.

A wave of cold went through Ben.

No. Not now. He couldn’t fade when Klaus’s heat was so tight around him, when he could still feel the phantom clench of him on his fingers. He shut his eyes and bucked his hips, willing Klaus’s life force to bloom inside him.

“I told you I can’t get him, I _can’t—”_

“You can,” Ben said, tightening his hand on Klaus’s hip. He wouldn’t let his fingers sink through his skin. “You have me, Klaus, I’m right here. You got me, I’m inside you—”

_—like you’re inside me, always, like the sense of you I felt when I blinked my eyes open for the first time since going under and saw you, like when I asked if I was dead and you screamed when you realized I could talk to you—_

“I’m _here,”_ Ben said, and he tugged Klaus’s cock, rocking into him and stroking him tightly, furiously, willing his body to be warm for him.

“Ben,” Klaus croaked.

“Come for me,” Ben said.

“Ben?”

Klaus’s eyes fluttered open and his body went rigid. Ben tightened his arms around him, kissing him, every part of his neck. Klaus made a half-awake groaning sound and Ben thrust into him.

“Let it happen,” he said into Klaus’s ear. “I’m here, Klaus. You’re fine. Come on, come for me—”

Klaus’s eyes were groggy. The lean core of his body trembled and arched as he woke up, surfacing up from the in-between, coming alive with a gasp, spilling over Ben’s hand.

“You’re safe,” Ben said, as Klaus came down. “You don’t have to— you don’t have to worry about me.”

Klaus blinked. His eyes were heavy-lidded with sleep. “Am I… did you—”

“I’m here,” Ben said. He was the one shaking now. “I’ve got you, Klaus.”

“Oh,” Klaus said. “That bad, huh?”

“Do you remember what you were dreaming about?” Ben said carefully.

“They all kind of start to blend together after a while,” Klaus said, stretching like a cat. He wrinkled his nose. “I have a vague memory of blood.”

“Do you?”

“A shit ton of blood,” Klaus said. “And someone was… there was… oh, _shit.”_

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Do you need me to, ah, clean you up? Or anything?”

“Are you traumatized?” Klaus said, squinting at him.

Ben frowned. He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He didn’t think he could picture a version of him, or Klaus, or anyone in their family without a webbing of scars across the psyche. If Klaus meant this specific incident of surreal wrongness, M.C. Escher hellscape dream of inside-out memory and sexual touch… honestly, that didn’t place on any great trauma leaderboard. But after he’d scored “violent untimely death,” nothing else would ever particularly compare, anyway.

“Ben?” Klaus said.

“Yeah, Klaus?”

“I think there’s lube dripping out of my asshole,” Klaus said.

“Yeah,” Ben said, looking down, “that would be the case.”

Klaus wiggled. “Did you like it?”

Ben swallowed. He couldn’t deny the draw of Klaus lying half-prone and vulnerable, skin nearly glowing in the darkness, but Klaus’s eyes were so much warmer when he was awake.

“I think next time,” he said, resting a hand on Klaus’s thigh, “we should try before you fall asleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> [electra-xt](https://electra-xt.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, taking prompts, come talk to me about TUA!


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